Learning to cook in India - Miss Jyoti's cooking demonstrations

Welcoming chanting and dancing by village women and children

Saturday,  March 03                                                                                     Udaipur

This morning, Michael joined a group going horseback riding and I chose to participate in a cooking class. About 15 of us  boarded a bus and headed to the Devra cooking school.  As we climbed the stairs to the building, marigold petals rained down on our heads to welcome us.  The location is also a bed and breakfast, and a village reception committee was gathered in the inner courtyard.  There were about 20 women and children who were singing and dancing a welcome, this day after the Holi holiday.  I had fun taking their photos and showing the kids the results.

A warm welcome at the Devra cooking school 

Raining marigold petal on our heads as we enter the courtyard

Village women dancing and welcoming us

The children were totally curious about our group

Like all kids, they liked getting their photo taken, and then seeing what it looked like

After that fun interlude of welcoming, we sat on an outside porch, with a nice breeze, while our host, Jyoti, introduced herself and her philosophy of cooking.  She follows an Ayurvedic approach to cooking and health.  She's clearly an energetic and educated woman with three jobs:  she's the personal secretary for the King's appointments, she runs a bed and breakfast and she does cooking class demonstrations.

Our host, Jyoti, made three dishes for us from fresh local ingredients - she uses a pressure cooker to speed things along

Eggplant stuffed with dry curry - she always uses 4 spices for curry: coriander, salt, chili and turmeric

Using primarily winter vegetables today, as it's the end of the winter season

Jyoti shares her garam masala box: Black peppercorns, cinnamon, cloves, brown cardamom, nutmeg, and bay leaves

Cauliflower, green peas and sieved tomatoes with garam masala - so yummy!

Jyoti demonstrated how to make three dishes for us, in what she describes as heritage cooking:  Mutton curry, stuffed eggplant and tomato cauliflower.  She describes three types of food in the Ayurvedic tradition - satbic, which is healthy and balanced and uses fresh ingredients with little oils or ghee; rajsic, which is rich and heavy - often served for guests or at holidays, with lots of oil, yoghurt, ghee, or other sauces; and tannic, which is fried foods.  She says she puts  at least one teaspoon of turmeric in every dish, as it helps the immune system.  She says the "food mafia" has taken over what we eat - for example, everyone used to cook with ghee (clarified butter), but the food mafia said butter was bad for you and everyone started cooking with manufactured oil.  Now, ghee has been rediscovered for its healthy properties.  She has a nice expression:  "happy teaspoons", which is what we would call a heaping teaspoonful.

Cauliflower, eggplants and peas used in today's cooking

Jyoti's dining room with all our luncheon dishes laid out for our tasting

It was interesting to watch her cook using pressure cookers, which she uses constantly to cut down on cooking time, and also to save on fuel.  For example, the mutton curry only cooked about 20 minutes; without a pressure cooker it would take 2 or 3 hours.  In addition to the three demonstration dishes, she served a number of other typical dishes for our luncheon - including a delicious chicken curry.  We had sweet Indian donuts for dessert - gulab jamon - flavored with cardamon and served with ice cream.

She cooked a mutton curry that was delicious(!) - and gets it's rich color from red onions

Friends Mason and Julie enjoying our lunch